Details

SESAM - a new framework integrating macroecological and species distribution models for predicting spatio-temporal patterns of species assemblages

Journal

Journal of Biogeography

Author(s)

GuisanA., RahbeckC.

ISSN

0305-0270

Publication state

Published

Issued date

2011

Peer-reviewed

Oui

Volume

38

Number

8

Pages

1433-1444

Language

english

Abstract

Two different approaches currently prevail for predicting spatial patterns of species assemblages. The first approach (macroecological modelling, MEM) focuses directly on realised properties of species assemblages, whereas the second approach (stacked species distribution modelling, S-SDM) starts with constituent species to approximate assemblage properties. Here, we propose to unify the two approaches in a single 'spatially-explicit species assemblage modelling' (SESAM) framework. This framework uses relevant species source pool designations, macroecological factors, and ecological assembly rules to constrain predictions of the richness and composition of species assemblages obtained by stacking predictions of individual species distributions. We believe that such a framework could prove useful in many theoretical and applied disciplines of ecology and evolution, both for improving our basic understanding of species assembly across spatio-temporal scales and for anticipating expected consequences of local, regional or global environmental changes. In this paper, we propose such a framework and call for further developments and testing across a broad range of community types in a variety of environments.